Healthy opportunity

It's halfway through the influenza season, andBioSense is on alert. Although the federal publichealth monitoring program is showing onlymild flu activity across the United States thiswinter, BioSense is getting more attention as itprepares for a new contract.

The Centers for Disease Control andPrevention, which have run BioSense since2004, are expected to award a $100 millioncontract to integrate BioSense's componentsinto a more cohesive system,according to Input Inc. CDC is also signingup more hospitals and health care systems.

More than a dozen systems integratorsand other federal contractors are preparingto bid on the work even though theaward might be delayed until this summer.Some of the companies are unsurewhether the project will proceed asplanned and point to personnel turnover atCDC as one reason for doubt. "We are notsure this is a real opportunity," said anexecutive at a major systems integrator.

Michelle Heath, formerly the procurementcontact at CDC for BioSense, is nolonger in that position, according toInput, a research firm in Herndon, Va. Theproject's status is on hold although Input stillforecasts a request for proposals in April.But most vendors are optimistic. As a projectwith high visibility and possibly long-termsignificance for electronic health care datahandling, BioSense is hard to resist.

BioSense is one of the largest federalprograms for biosurveillance, a field that hasbenefited from growing public awareness sincethe still-unsolved anthrax mailings shortlyafter the terrorist attacks of 2001.

Because BioSense is a national program thatuses new technologies to discover emergingtrends in public health, it is likely to lead toother health information technology opportunities,said Sanjay Patel, president of WebFirstInc., of Rockville, Md., a Web applicationsdevelopment company.

"Anything within biodefense is a high-profileprogram," said Dennis Dietrich, ofDigicon Corp., a Herndon, Va., servicesprovider looking to be a subcontractor onBioSense.

The final RFP has not been issued, but severallarge contractors have expressed interest."We have strong capabilities that align withCDC's health IT mission," said Mark Meudt, aspokesman at General DynamicsInformation Technology.

When BioSense began, it collecteddata only from Defense Departmentand Veterans Affairs Department facilities.Its field expanded quickly though,and as of November 2007, BioSensehad 523 facilities transmitting realtimedata for 46 major metropolitanareas and 37 states, according to astatement from CDC.

In addition to that information,BioSense also receives daily data from466 DOD and 863 VA clinics andemergency departments and has commitmentsfor future links with additionalhospitals, according to an Inputreport.

"In total, CDC has commitmentsfrom health care and existing systemsrepresenting more than 1,190 hospitalswilling to transmit data to BioSense,"Input analysts wrote. The agency's goals were to hook up 1,450 hospitals by theend of 2007 and 2,500 by the end of 2008.CDC issued a draft RFP in August saying itwould seek IT services and tools to improveBioSense performance, increase collaboration,identify duplicative activities and gaps,eliminate redundancies, and reduce costsacross the enterprise architecture.

Under the proposed contract, the winningbidder would be responsible for applicationsdevelopment, data quality, program/projectmanagement and oversight, data security,data provisioning, data warehousing, recruitingof data sources, and interacting with thehost service provider, according to the RFP.

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